Athanor
by Steelcircle
Summary: Ferak thought that having Darkwing and Dreadwind for wing-mates was bad. It gets worse. Follows off "Reaction Formation".


**Athanor**

Flying with Darkwing and Dreadwind was just blasted weird, and Ferak longed to be with his old trio again. His old wing-mates were nothing but shrapnel now, but even they, nothing but scrap as they were, seemed preferable to Doom and Gloom. Dreadwind wasn't actively bad, but just having him there made Ferak feel that he had been dipped in liquid hydrogen and was now brittle enough to shatter. Ferak didn't like that feeling. He was tough, wasn't he? He had survived the deaths of his wing-mates, but Dreadwind made him feel as if their deaths were his fault, daft as that sounded. Ferak got so frustrated by it that he just wanted to slug Dreadwind one, but it was nothing that Dreadwind actually did. The machine simply radiated grief and sorrow and accusation like it was _his_ wing-mate that died. Darkwing, however, had a welder up his afterburner and actively tried to drag others down, and Ferak _was_ going to slug him someday.

At least this assignment was just temporary. Ferak took comfort in that knowledge, though he did curse his old wing-mates for being so stupid as to die and land him in this mess. Besides, part of the reason why the assignment was temporary was part of the reason it was so wretched. If Dreadwind's wing-mate had died, leaving him and Darkwing a pair, it would explain why they had no third. No, Darkwing and Dreadwind were a pair and, near as Ferak could tell, always had been. Not only that, but they were happy, to use the term so loosely as to completely strip it of all meaning, without a third. It still put Ferak's neural pathways in a twist to think about it. The general freakishness of the two only added insult to injury. Ferak wouldn't wait to be properly placed. If he wasn't stuck out at this two-bit outpost, he would have been placed by now, instead of stuck with those creeps.

* * *

Patrol went uneventfully, which was a leaking shame. Ferak could have used some action. Nothing happened out here. Apparently, the Autobots placed as little importance on the outpost as the Decepticons did. It burned Ferak up to be doing such pointless work. Where was the destruction? Where was the glory? Where was the excitement?

It wasn't here. The jets flew into the outpost's main hanger, transformed, and touched down. Another team, a normal team, would take over patrol duty. Ferak envied them, but noted that they were late.

Then, the heavy hanger doors rumbled closed, unbidden. A tick later, the lights dimmed and changed to a warning hue, and the lockdown klaxons sounded.

"What's going on?" Ferak demanded, half-annoyed and half-pleased. He might finally see some combat.

"If I knew, I'd be out of here," Darkwing shot back.

Ferak ignored him, listening for the inevitable announcements to come. Tuning into the usual airwaves gave nothing but static. There wasn't blank nothing, as if the transmitter was down, but there was static, as if it was damaged or jammed. Now Ferak was wholly annoyed. If this was all a drill, it was only going to make his shift worse.

Then, Dreadwind's cold voice pierced Ferak's furious thoughts with, "We're trapped."

"What?" Ferak snapped.

"The outside hanger doors aren't the only ones locked."

Ferak locked around, to confirm or deny Dreadwind's assertion. Darkwing stood over at one door, railing at it, as if to scare it open. Dreadwind was at another, trying to coax it open. Shock, Dreadwind was right, Ferak realised with a scowl. "What kind of lockdown is this if we can't get into battle stations?"

"One where something's gone heavily wrong. Do you hear it? Static on the airwaves, static."

"Yeah, I know." It was so like Dreadwind to expect the worst, and Ferak didn't want to admit that the doomsayer might have a point just yet. There was a way out of this, he just knew it. He wasn't going to be beaten by some stupid doors.

Then, a shot rang out. Ferak snapped his attention back to Darkwing. One of the interior doors' control boxes had been blown away, and Darkwing was reaching inside.

"You won't get the door open that way," Ferak heckled, though he privately admitted that Darkwing was probably shady enough to know lock-picking.

In response, Darkwing yanked out a snarl of cables and pelted it at Ferak. Ferak yanked the assorted wires off his wingtip, where they had caught, when he noticed that a few of the cables were moving. Looking more closely, he saw that they weren't normal cables at all but disgustingly flexible, segmented tubes, haphazardly coloured as if made from many materials.

Ferak paced up to Darkwing, shaking the bundle threateningly, and demanded, "What scrap is this?"

"Oh, did I mistake you for the refuse shute? Quiet, I've almost got the door open," Darkwing said by way of return fire. He gave the mutilated remains of the door controls a final tweak and stepped back.

He didn't step back far enough. The hallway was slowly being overrun by those segmented cable-tentacles that Ferak had seen in the wiring bundle. They emerged from the seams in the plating of the walls, floor, and ceiling, twisting the plating as they did, all too pliant and bendable - what respectable thing flexed like that? A few tentacles wrapped around Darkwing's ankle and dragged him down to the floor

Stunned into stupidity by shock at seeing the surreal scene before him, Ferak could only think that Darkwing somehow deserved it. Far-off screams and nearby Darkwing's shrieks brought Ferak back to his senses. He withdrew his rifle and set to shooting Darkwing free. A moment later, Dreadwind joined in with his wrist guns. Quickly, enough of the cables were severed that Darkwing was able to pull himself free.

"The enemy's not out there; it's inside," Darkwing said, stomping on and batting away any tentacles that got too close.

"Couldn't it be both?" Dreadwind asked.

"I'd rather take my chances outside with Autobots than in here," Ferak insisted, crossing his arms. All the locked doors were making him nervous, and the dark purple colour scheme of the outpost, dimmed by the emergency lights, didn't help alleviate that close feeling. Those repulsive tentacles were everywhere and, to judge from the screaming down the hall, rather dangerous.

"They could be outside, too," Dreadwind suggested.

"There'll be open air, at least," Ferak insisted.

"We'd have to touch down someday," Darkwing said dismissively.

"Would we?" There was an odd tone to Dreadwind's voice, and something passed between him and Darkwing that Ferak didn't quite get. Those two had more tricks than they let on to, and Ferak didn't trust them not to be up to something.

"Then let's ditch this dump," Darkwing decided. He went for the hanger doors, apparently intending to jimmy the lock as he had done with the interior door. Ferak followed close behind, eager to be away from the trawling tentacles. Dreadwind followed a beat slower. Careless of where he was going, one of the cables looped around Dreadwind's ankle. Ferak glanced back to see the commotion and saw Dreadwind deal with the problem.

He turned his attention back to Darkwing and the door. Creeper cables emerged from the door control box, wrapping around Darkwing's arms. Every so often, he would wrench away and tear off as many as he could. Ferak noted that Darkwing was getting twitchier as time passed and, for once, couldn't blame him. These tentacles were a blasted nuisance, invading where they had no right to be, and uglier than an Autobot in the air. It was sickening just to be in the same room as them, and Ferak wanted out badly.

"Hurry it up," Ferak growled, antsy.

"I don't see you helping. Maybe I'll just take my time," Darkwing threatened.

"At the rate you're going, blasting through would be quicker." Even Ferak knew that was foolish. The hanger doors were several arm spans thick and reinforced, good for keeping the enemy out but equally good for trapping the Decepticons inside. Ferak cursed the outpost designers, whoever they might be, for their well-meaning paranoia. Death by creeper cables was not an acceptable way to die. No way was, but strange cables seemed particularly ignominious.

Then, Dreadwind shrieked, alerting the others that a tentacle had dropped from the ceiling and wrapped around his neck. Another cable was busily looping around his arm, and more twined around his ankle.

"Blasted things just keep coming," Ferak noted direly, frustrated and more than a bit concerned for his own safely, as he took up aim to free Dreadwind. No one had come this way to escape, and at least a few ought to have tried the hanger exit, the team coming to replace them in particular. If this infestation had taken down everyone else, there was a chance, a tiny but horrible chance, that it could get him, too. Still, he had survived when his wing-mates had been reduced to scrap metal. He could take this. He hoped.

"And they go for the joints," Darkwing reported, taking a break from lock-jimmying to help blast Dreadwind free. The cables just kept coming, now seeming less and infestation and more some macabre extension of the base itself.

"This is no use," Ferak voiced. In a way, he was happy. If Dreadwind snuffed it, he wouldn't have to put up with the pervasively morbid machine anymore.

Darkwing shot Ferak a glare filled with a certain singular hatred that he usually reserved for Dreadwind and lowered his blaster. Ferak smirked. It was only sensible to forget Dreadwind and concentrate on escaping this nightmare. Darkwing was a pain in every other way, but he had to understand the simple principles of survival, Ferak reckoned. No Decepticon stayed alive long without knowing those.

Then, Darkwing shoved Ferak over and leapt at Dreadwind. The force of his tackle rent a number of the cables with the sickening sound of popping joints and the piercing squeal of torn metal. Ferak quickly got to his feet, unwilling to stay on the tentacle-strewn ground much longer, scowling and cursing. He had suspected from first sight that something was off-kilter about his new wing-mates, but this outburst cinched it. Darkwing and Dreadwind were nuts, plain and simple. The first thing that Ferak was going to do once he got out of this place, he vowed, was ditch those two. There had to be a detachment that would take him in somewhere.

He glanced over at Darkwing, remembering that if that doomsayer didn't get the door open, there would be no future in which to ditch him. Picking his way over the rapidly-buckling floor - soon, it would be preferable to fly, despite the hanging cables - Ferak walked up to Darkwing, who was still furiously ripping tentacles away from his partner. Grudgingly, he had to admit that Darkwing looked like he might be able to get Dreadwind free, but he didn't care. Ferak wanted the door open _now_. So he grabbed Darkwing's elbow and pulled as hard as he could, strength fuelled by desperation. Darkwing came loose and knocked over Ferak on the way down.

Immediately, Darkwing was on his feet in a crouch, an excellent sort of pose for springing and tearing out a mechanism's vital parts. As he sprung, Ferak remembered yet another ludicrous characteristic of Darkwing; instead of shooting from a distance like a decent jet, he had a habit of diving headlong into close combat. Now, with Darkwing's hand wrapped around his neck, that predilection for hand-to-hand combat seemed less ridiculous and more terrifying. Ferak squirmed and pried at Darkwing's hand, trying to dislodge his murderous wing-mate. With sudden and unwelcome certainty, Ferak perceived that if those creeper cables did not kill him, his wing-mates certainly would. He choked back a hysterical laugh and managed to squeeze out, "Dreadwind's... he's still tangled."

Looking disgusted, as if Dreadwind was distracting him from killing Ferak on purpose, he returned to freeing his partner. Dazed and stupidly giddy just to be alive, Ferak sat and watched Darkwing go to work. He seemed to fight all the more bitterly because of his revulsion of his segmented foes. Abruptly, Ferak stood because a probing cable poking into his knee rudely shocked him back to reality. He wasn't fond of being touched normally, and a killer cable was entirely unwelcome. Ferak was left with an intense unclean feeling, one that he was sure would vanish if he could just see the sky again.

He returned to the door control box, vainly trying to figure out what Darkwing had been doing there. Tentacles writhed inside and dripped out of the control box, one a matte black akin to that of the armour of the outpost's commander. The more Ferak looked, the more it seemed exactly alike. A horrible thought entered his mind; perhaps the dead were recycled and made into more creeper cables? Ferak's head spun and he felt ill. Looking at the rest of the unwholesome extrusions, he could pick out colours that he recognised: colours from other wings and colours from support personnel.

Deeply disturbed, he yanked away from the door and exclaimed, "The outpost ate them alive!" Not only would he die an ignominious death, deprived of even a blaze of glory, but his corpse would be remade into more loathsome tentacles. Nauseous with revulsion, Ferak turned around dizzily and let loose a salvo at the door. The door absorbed his blasts and not even scorch marks married the finish to show that he had tried. Ferak threw himself at the door, knowing fully well how futile it was. Frustration and terror clouded his mind, and despite the pointless of it all, he pounded at the door, if only to feel like he was doing something.

Eventually, the tentacles got so numerous and persistent that Ferak had to abandon pummelling the exit just to keep himself marginally intact. Thoughts of giving up intruded like the probing cables that tried to wrench into his joints, but with an effort, Ferak beat back those treacherous thoughts just as he beat back the tentacles. Though the far-off screams had died away, he could still hear Darkwing battling to free Dreadwind, and there was still a chance that they might. Just laying down to die went against everything the Decepticons held dear, and desperate and despairing as he was, Ferak was not about to discard that tenet of survival at any cost.

Then, the sounds of Darkwing's struggle stopped. Ferak listened, and he only heard his own frantic scrambling to and the gliding susurration of the creeper cables. So the slagger had gone and got himself killed trying to save his wing-mate. There was watching out for your wing, and there was just plain stupidity. While Ferak was all for letting idiots get themselves slagged, he was irked that Darkwing's dumbness was going to get him killed, too. Still, Ferak took some pleasure in knowing that the pest and his partner had gone out on thoroughly wretched fashion.

He could just lie down and die, he knew, and the thought, so inconceivable just breems before, began to have a certain cloying appeal. Fighting a losing battle was pointless. Any sensible mechanism would just cut his losses. Then, Ferak remembered his own dire reality and was disgusted with himself. Giving in without first giving his all to beat this death-trap smacked of defeatism that he would sooner expect of Dreadwind.

Perhaps if Ferak could recover some weapons from Darkwing, he would have enough firepower to blow a hole in the ceiling or even the floor, if it came to that. Ferak turned sharply to snap off the tentacles latching onto him. He was just in time to be shoved over by Darkwing, who had finally freed Dreadwind, hence ending the sounds of his struggles, and evidently wanted another whack at the door.

Ferak jumped to his feet and snarled, "Next time you're about to do something stupid, tell me so I can get the scrap out of the way!"

"Take it up with Dreadwind," Darkwing said brusquely. "It's not my fault he got grabbed."

Ferak glanced over at Dreadwind, who was a more ghastly sight than usual. A few severed tentacles were still sunk into his frame. His armour around his joints had been peeled back, and so he wobbled as he stood. Buckled and bulging armour, frayed wires, and leaking lubricant combined to give him quite the ghastly look.

_Well, better him than me,_ Ferak thought, but what he said, scorn in his voice, was, "You finally match your attitude."

"Shove off, Ferak," Dreadwind grumbled. "I'm _dying_"

"Buck up and take it. You're not that bad off," Ferak replied dismissively, used to Dreadwind's morbid streak.

"This isn't histrionics. My self-repair systems have gone haywire." Dreadwind sounded utterly defeated.

"So why did Darkwing just, just - you're both crazy!" Ferak threw his hands in the air, frustrated and hopeless.

"Darkwing's hoping someone can fix it before I die. Besides, he's dying, too. Aren't you?" Dreadwind tilted his head to one side, studying Ferak.

"If he hasn't noticed it yet, leave him in the dark," Darkwing suggested, ever ill-spirited. "Then, it'll be funnier when he does figure it out."

Ferak growled, batting away a tangle of creeper cables. A diagnostic scan did reveal that his self-repair systems were going haywire. "So what? I'll just shut them down for now." Ferak tried just that and then grimaced.

"You can't, can you?" asked Dreadwind, though he sounded more sure than questioning.

"Just give me a breem," Ferak muttered, frantically trying his overrides.

"Scrap heaps, it looks like, well, I almost don't want to say it, because I've just loved being trapped here with you-" Darkwing started, maliciously cheerful.

"_What?_" Ferak demanded, his irritation exasperated by the bad company. "Can you get the door open or not?"

"Oh yeah, I can get the door open." Darkwing proceeded to do just that, despite the protesting groans from the door. "Feel free to stay behind, though. I'm sure those cables could use some company."

"Slag off!" Ferak shouted, barrelling through the door soon as it was open wide enough for him to squeeze through it. He assumed his wide-winged Hunter-Seeker variant alternate form. It wasn't as zippy as the standard version, but its greater distance endurance made up for that.

Darkwing transformed and peeled off after him. Dreadwind barely made it into his jet mode, raising a horrible racket of squealing metal, crushing composites, and snapping cables as he did so, and lagged behind the other two. As Ferak flew away, he noted that while the whole planet was not overrun with tentacles, the outpost was looking that way. For whatever reason, its spread seemed to be limited to the general vicinity of the outpost. He saw a few Decepticons bound to the outer walls and wagged his wings, laughing at them.

After flying a decent distance, Darkwing forced Ferak down, cutting in front of his flight path. Taking the hint, Dreadwind also touched down but remained in jet form, perhaps fearful that he would fall apart if he assumed robot mode.

"What's the big idea?" Ferak groused.

"If the rest of the army gets wind of a bunch of sick mechanisms, they'll slag us on sight. I'll try to scrounge up some help. Ferak, if Dreadwind dies on your watch, you'd better fly, because I _will_ have your ugly, over-sized wings for that. Got it?"

Ferak snarled back, "Got everything except why you care if that bucket of bolts dies."

Darkwing shrugged and returned to the air.

"Just what is the deal with you two?" Ferak asked of Dreadwind, sitting down beside the heavily damaged Decepticon.

Dreadwind sighed, a zephyr in a broken wind tunnel. "We combine."

"_That_ wasn't in your dossiers!" Ferak exclaimed, disgusted.

Dreadwind looked away and moaned, "Who wants to fly fourth to a pair that makes three between the two of them?"

"Explains all the blasted bad luck we've been having." Ferak cursed softly under his exhaust. "Here, I was just thinking you two were cursed."

"We are that," Dreadwind agreed readily. "How would you like to combine with someone who undeniably hates you? We're no good as a team, but we'd be worse apart, and if one of us died..."

"So that's it?" Ferak felt like he was waiting for the other bombshell to drop.

"That's all," Dreadwind said, but Ferak didn't believe him.

They were silent then. Ferak had his answer, and he didn't enjoy talking with Dreadwind more than he had to, and after a while, it didn't seem like Dreadwind was in any shape to speak, anyway. Blast his superiors, but Ferak would have rather been tossed in the brig than fly in a quartet. Some of the higher-ups made fun of such beliefs, but they wouldn't think it funny if they were sitting out here, waiting around as their self-repair systems tore them apart.

Ferak considered abandoning Doom and Gloom, as he had thought before, but he remembered Darkwing's warning. That Decepticon was as vicious as anyone. He would follow up on that warning and gladly. Ferak liked having his wings right where they were, attached to his body.

So he waited.

* * *

Darkwing returned, fairly crashing so ungraceful was his descent. Ferak had to admit that he wasn't feeling up to much fancy flying himself. "Any luck?"

"Alkali made it out. She'll be over here soon," Darkwing answered curtly, stumbling over to Dreadwind's side.

"A slowpoke like her has got to be a wreck."

"Oh, she is," Darkwing agreed, "not that trucks ever look good."

Ferak had to laugh, despite his situation. "You got that right. Think she can do anything about this?"

"She's got a cocktail that forces self-repair system shutdown and destroys nanites. Seems to work," Darkwing explained.

Ferak sputtered in disbelief, "You actually drank something she gave you?"

Darkwing was not perturbed. He shrugged. "What could it hurt? I was dead either way."

"Fatalism will get you killed," Ferak snapped.

Darkwing countered, "So will a bad attitude."

"You wanna try me?" Ferak tried to stand but fell forward, flat on his face, instead.

"Oh, you're trying all right. I ought to..." but whatever Darkwing ought to have done, he instead swivelled around and announced, "The commander's pet tech is here."

"Took her long enough," Ferak grumbled, pushing his aching body back into a sitting position. He had been shot, punched, mauled, and just recently, menaced by tentacles, but now his own body had turned against him. Ferak had never felt so wretched. Sensation dropped out entirely in spots as his sensors were stripped to provide material for whatever his traitorous self-repair systems were up to. There was an enemy that couldn't be stopped with a gun, unless he wanted to take it to his own head.

Yes, there was the truck, looking worse for the wear. The creeper cables had really done a number on her. Transformed, she looked no better. Alkali must have heard Ferak's comment about her slow arrival, because she scoffed, "Ach, so what? At least I'm not all thruster and no processor."

"That's a fine thing to say, walking wounded like that," Ferak bristled.

"At least I'm walking," Alkali replied innocently enough and then twisted in the thumbscrews, "and unless I'm mistaken, that's a bit beyond you now."

"Forget the Seeker and get Dreadwind fixed," Darkwing said roughly.

"I'll forget the Seeker gladly," she agreed, crouching down beside Dreadwind to look him over, "but this one's in a bad way."

"What ever happened to triage?" protested Ferak.

"The order gets shifted when I get a choice between a quiet junker and a mouthy fixer-upper." Alkali hauled Dreadwind over to her trailer, which unfolded to a cross between a bar and a laboratory. She put the jet on the long table and withdrew a few straps to keep him from moving while she worked, muttering about the mess. Ferak started to say something, but Alkali cut him off with, "Shut your trap, or I'll dose you with paralytics and shut it for you."

"Do you have any idea what caused this mess?" Darkwing asked, watching with great scrutiny what she did to his partner.

"I've got a better one than I'd like," Alkali admitted, hooking up some cables to Dreadwind. "A while ago, an outside team was called in to alter the power plant. I couldn't figure out what they were doing then, but I've got a fair idea now."

"Our own side did this?" Ferak demanded, ignoring the order to stay silent. Sure, they were Decepticons, anything for power, but... _this_? Violating tentacles and suborned self-repair systems? Ferak was sick, sicker than he'd ever been before, but that news just made him feel worse, which he hadn't imagined was even possible.

"Ach, think about it," Alkali suggested, as if thinking wasn't something Ferak did much. "Middle of nowhere place of little tactical value lead by an ex-spook with more ambition than his weight-to-lift ratio can support ... perfect spot to test out some unconventional weaponry."

"I get all that." Ferak gingerly rubbed the sides of his helmet. "I just want to be on the giving rather than the receiving side."

Alkali laughed. "To put it simply, they basically gave the base its own self-repair system and a bit of AI, very primitive, disguising it as something else. Now, for something so big as an outpost, causing any major change was going to take a while for the 'repair' system, so it laid low and was quiet about what it was doing."

"Or the resident tech was too much of a blockhead to notice what was happening," Darkwing observed sharply, sneering down at Alkali as she worked.

"Said resident _artist_ will eagerly extend the same special offer to you previously extended to Ferak; shut it or have it shut for you." Darkwing quickly quieted, glaring sullenly. Ferak relished the other's silence, perversely feeling it a victory of sorts. After a pause, Alkali continued. "Now, once it had grown enough of the creeper cables, the infestation showed itself, and the cycle started all over again in the unlucky ones that got infected. That would be us. We are better off than the ones that got eaten alive but," she paused, as Dreadwind's panels were finally pried back enough for her purposes. Alkali set aside the crowbar, selected a scalpel, rummaged in Dreadwind's innards, and pulled out a limp tentacle. "Left too long, we start growing these, get the potential to infect others, and die. As a straight-out weapon, it's downright bizarre. As psychological warfare, it's brilliant. Your radio goes down, your own home rises up to eat you, and any survivors are just plague vectors." She took a break from removing tentacles from Dreadwind to fill up a cube with some noxious-looking chemicals and tossed it to Ferak.

He gulped it down without thinking, as was usually the only way to take such potions. The bit that lingered in his mouth was enough to make him want a system purge. Ferak sputtered, "You slaggers could have warned me about the taste!"

"We prefer to see you suffer," Darkwing needled.

"What he said," Alkali agreed.

Still grimacing, Ferak voiced, "I think that Dreadwind had it best, being so out of it."

Alkali picked that moment to lob one of the tentacles from Dreadwind at Ferak. He batted the limp cable away and sat there miserably, feeling like grit was being forced through his internals.

"Anyway, all the nearby commanders have probably been briefed that if their men see any survivors, they should shoot on sight to keep the infection from spreading," Alkali reasoned.

"That was what I figured," Darkwing said.

"We're doomed?" Ferak asked sarcastically.

"No, we're not heading back to Decepticon territory," Alkali said, still slogging through Dreadwind's internals.

"I'm sure the Autobots have some prison cells with our names on them," suggested Darkwing dourly. "Followed, of course, by the removal of our personality components and the destruction of our physical bodies."

"Ach, we're not surrendering! We're going to pay a visit to the nearest Artists' Quarter."

* * *

The two fliers still able to speak put up a protest to Alkali's plan, but when it came right down to it, they didn't have any better ideas. Alkali stabilised Dreadwind, got him mostly cleaned out, and then patched up Darkwing and Ferak enough that they'd be able to make the trip, but Dreadwind was missing too many pieces for which she didn't have replacements on hand. After some argument, she refolded her trailer and allowed him to be strapped on top.

Those arguments finished, they set course. Darkwing flew ahead, scouting the way for any unexpected obstructions. Ferak, the slower of the two, hung back, ostensibly to escort Alkali. Swiftly bored, he asked, "Think we should have checked for other survivors?"

"Just more hassles to worry about. I'm regretting helping you three as it is. Let them die," she replied bluntly.

Ferak wagged his wings. "I didn't want to help them. I wanted to shoot them myself."

"A waste of materials to just shoot them, if you're going to go through the trouble of finding them first," Alkali opined.

The trip passed fairly eventfully and without much chatter. Darkwing spotted a group of empties, and some fun was had there, although Alkali insisted on taking one alive and intact. She tied him to her trailer with none of the fuss that she offered about Dreadwind. Alkali explained, "In order to get us out of this mess, I'm going to need to ask some favours, and gifts always grease the skids."

A bit put out that he didn't get to snuff the slagger, Ferak accepted that explanation. They continued on their way, reaching the city outskirts battered and weary. Most cities of any decent size had Artists' Quarters, not that Ferak paid any attention to them. Wherever there were potential patrons, there were artists, and they tended to group together for ease of location.

"Stick close to me and don't do anything stupid," Alkali advised. "Most artists have better things to do than bother a fellow artist. Philistine jets, however, are fair game to be nabbed as materials. I didn't drag you three out here just to let someone else dismantle you."

"How reassuring," Darkwing commented, his tone making it clear that he wasn't reassured in the least.

"I'd like to see one try!" scoffed Ferak. "He'd be slag for certain!"

"Think you could take me?" Alkali asked, her voice dangerously soft.

"If I was in proper condition-" Ferak started.

"You aren't. Remember that," she snapped. "Ach, I could break you in two if I wanted, even if you were mint. Don't take artists too lightly. You'd be shocked how many flyboys just like you get hauled in as materials right alongside the empties."

"You'd be surprised how many jumped-up techs - where'd Darkwing go?" Ferak looked left and right, but Darkwing had vanished.

"Of all the air-headed stunts!" Alkali swore. "A non-standard Decepticon jet is going to attract attention, and a combiner would be a real prize for some."

Ferak glanced around, trying to see where Darkwing might have gone. The buildings in this Artists' Quarter were a lot more decorated than the stuff he was used to. A lighted sign caught his optics, though, and he grinned. "An oil house!"

"If I was an idiot jet, where would I-" Alkali mused. "You're probably right. You go find Darkwing. I'll find some place to stash my trailer and catch up with you."

"I am so there." As if entranced by the glowing sign, Ferak made a beeline for the oil house. As he entered, a door guard pointed him at a set of rules. Ferak dismissed, "Same ones as anywhere."

"Not quite." The guard smirked and pointed again.

This time, Ferak actually cast his gaze over at the rules list. No fighting, no messes, no skipping out without - that one was different. _Don't pay, and you take your chances._ The bar in Alkali's gallery - Ferak had once poked in there on a dare - had said the same thing. So much for drowning his sorrows in a drink. Blast these artists, was nothing sacred?

Despite the ominous rules, the inside of the oil house was crowded with many machines clustered around tall tables or lined up at the bar. The place was clean enough, considering its purpose, and a little more brightly lit than Ferak expected, alternating coloured lights depending on location. The customers seemed to be enjoying themselves, to judge by how several had burst into off-key song.

"...oh, Killtrigger, you cruel, cruel thing..."

"...old Trannis was a warlord..."

"...and all the Wreckers tried and they tried..."

"Battlepants!"

Darkwing was not at the main bar. Life could never be that easy. Ferak pushed through the crowd trying to find him, occasionally slipping where others had spilled their beverages. Slowly, Ferak began to realise that he stood out from the crowd. They didn't stare, but they noticed him more often. As a Decepticon jet and a Seeker-variant at that, Ferak was used to not being noticed unless he made himself heard with actions or words. Here, he didn't fit in _because_ he was a mass-produced model. Some of the clientele were standard models, but even they had non-standard decos or fittings. Ferak could pick out a few others like himself who didn't fit in, tourists or - Darkwing would be one of them, it dawned on him.

Altering his search pattern just to seek out such disturbances took him to an out of the-way table. Darkwing was there, slumped over a cube. Ferak snorted. _Must not be able to hold his energon, that Darkwing,_ was his first thought. His second thought would have been markedly more paranoid had it not been interrupted.

"What's your poison?" asked a server, an ugly, blocky ground-pounder of some sort.

Ferak started to answer, but was halted by the arrival of Alkali, who crossed her arms and commented, "She means that more literally than you know."

"They're mine by rights!" the server insisted, anger in her optics.

"Normally, I'd be happy to let you have these scrap-heads, but they were just recently infected with a contagious, fatal disease, and I don't want them out in public." Alkali smirked sickly, placin .ne hand on her hip and gesturing with the other

"A desperate story, that," scoffed the server.

"No, we were," Ferak interjected, a bit confused.

"See why Gloom here wanted to drown his sorrows? I swear, I ought to get them leashes. If you'll excuse us, I have some heavy duty nanolytics and self-repair system suppressants to administer." Alkali slung Darkwing over her shoulder and grabbed Ferak by the hand, seemingly intent on dragging him away. He yanked his hand free, more than a bit miffed, but followed.

"You said it was contagious?" the server asked, doubtful but sounding increasingly worried.

"Uh-huh. Might want to down some nanolytics and self-repair system suppressants if you're worried about an outbreak," Alkali suggested.

The sour expression on the server's face told Ferak that the technobabble Alkali just used probably referred to the same nasty potion she'd given them. Alkali ploughed a way through the crowd, and Ferak followed in her wake, letting her do the hard work, much as he sometimes did in formation. Once out, Ferak asked, "Didn't you already cure us?"

"You'd be dead by now if I didn't," Alkali replied, heading down a nearby alley. "It just made a good excuse to get you two out of there."

"So if the server drinks those nanowhatsists-"

"Nanolytics and self-repair suppressants," Alkli corrected, absently.

"-nanowhatever, it won't do anything?" Ferak finished, confused.

"Ach, it'll taste wretched and wreck her self-repair systems." Alkali looked back, grinning cruelly. "Isn't that enough?"

It took Ferak a few ticks to get her meaning, but he laughed when he did. Ferak followed her at a distance and saw that she had stashed her trailer - and Dreadwind and the empty - in the back of the alley. "There's something haywire with your idea of safe."

"It was safe enough for my purposes," Alkali assured.

"Anyone could have walked off with it!" Ferak protested. Ground-pounders were so dumb!

"If they had the pulling power, and not without me knowing it," Alkali added, as if that explained everything. It explained nothing.

"You bugged it?" Ferak frowned. Techs were bad enough, but Alkali crossed over to the spooky.

"Wing-head, I _am_ the trailer." Alkali set Darkwing down and commenced restarting him.

Ferak stared, flabbergasted for a moment, before asking plaintively, "What ever happened to one piece forms? What the shock was wrong with those?"

"Take it up with our designers," Alkali replied gruffly, apparently speaking for both herself and the combiner jets.

The thought hit him, and Ferak inquired, "Doesn't your trailer ever get bored when you leave it sitting around?"

Alkali looked like she wanted to hit Ferak for that thought. "Do your hands get bored when you're a jet?"

"No, but-"

Alkali concluded, "Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer."

Ferak's hands balled into fists, and he seethed, "You could stand to be taken down a notch!"

Alkali whispered, though intentionally loud enough for Ferak to hear, to the groggy but awake Darkwing, "He was talking about you."

In an instant, Darkwing tackled Ferak to the floor.

"I was talking about her, not you!" Ferak protested.

Darkwing looked back over his shoulder at Alkali.

She shrugged and said, "I did just drag you away from a chemical emotive sculptor and pumped you full of antidote." Alkali returned to her truck form and re-hitched her trailer.

"You're probably both lying," Darkwing decided. He stood, releasing Ferak but gazing at both the Seeker and the sculptor with ire. "So we're here. Now what?"

"Yeah, you might be able to live in this crazy place, but we can't," Ferak rejoined, standing.

Akali said breezily, "We go see one of the local Decepticons and ask him to vouch for us to the rest of the army."

"You make it sound so easy," said Darkwing, obviously thinking that it would be nothing of the sort.

"Here's hoping," replied Alkali. "Now follow me, and don't gawk or get lost again, or I _will_ get leashes!"

* * *

_Who the slag does she think she is, ordering us around like that?_ Ferak thought, reflecting on recent events. Then, sound like blades pierced his form. Ferak had to take a good look at himself to be convinced that he wasn't wounded.

"What is that blasted racket?" hollered Darkwing.

"A good sign. Sonic manipulation - can't call it music, can you? - is Scowl's trademark. We want an audience with his gestalt-mate," Alkali explained, more cheery than anyone listening to that aural devastation had a right to be.

"Gestalt-mate? _More_ weirdoes?" Ferak exclaimed.

"If you know what's good for you, you'll keep those thoughts to yourself," Alkali advised, "Even if you don't know what's good for you, you'll keep those thoughts to yourself, because I'm telling you to now."

Ferak snarled, "Go leap in a smelter!"

"After you, kite!" Akali snapped right back.

"As amusing as that would be, I just want out of here," Darkwing voiced. "You said we were close?"

"See the place with the dead guy strung up over the doorway? That's it." Alkali's headlight's flashed on, pointing out the building.

"How charming," Darkwing deadpanned.

"Watch it-" Alkali started warningly.

"-or it will be us. Yeah. Spooky. We get it," Ferak drawled. He, too, was sick of this disaster. After all that had transpired, Ferak would welcome patrol duty with Darkwing and Dreadwind again, even if it meant flying fourth to Cybertron's lousiest excuse for a trio.

Alkali snorted, extra exhaust exiting her smokestacks. "Ach, suit yourself."

They entered the lobby, only to see and hear the rather short source of the cacophony leaving in a huff. Alkali left her trailer in the lobby but gave Dreadwind to Darkwing to carry and the empty to Ferak. She then consulted with the droid at the desk. The dull thing would give her access to the gallery but could not tell her how to gain an audience with its master.

So they wandered the gallery, which actually was a few levels down, to the jets' dismay. Alkali did not seem ill at ease, but she wasn't sky borne. The gallery was unpleasantly dim and seemed cave-like in many ways, from the mottled colouration to the rounded edges to the randomly placed support columns. The actual artwork, lit by pinkish spotlights, seemed to be comprised of Autobots killed in imaginative ways, with the occasional neutral or Decepticon tossed in for variety. Ferak had to admit that some of the pieces were pretty neat and mentally took notes on the killing methods used. These sculptures beat the official statues that decorated the memorials by light-years, as far as he was concerned. The official statues didn't have gaping holes in them. The sculptures here were almost interesting enough to make Ferak forget that he was underground in an enclosed space. Darkwing also seemed to appreciate, albeit grimly, the creativity in maiming displayed by the sculptures.

"You're liking these for all the wrong reasons," Alkali announced, pouting.

"That one was impaled through one optic and out the other!" Ferak exclaimed, wondering how the artist had managed that trick.

"Ach, that is entirely not the point," Alkali groused, sounding as if she had suffered their company much longer than she had in reality.

"Have you down, the Philistines do?" asked a voice that Ferak did not recognise.

"Master Slog!" Alkali exclaimed, tossing off something that Ferak assumed was a salute, although it didn't look like any salute he had ever seen. "Forgive me. I am Journeyman Alkali, in the field of chemical emotive sculpture, and these three jets are my charges for the time being."

"Where is he?" asked Darkwing, looking around vainly.

"Often miss what is before them, optics to the sky do," answered Slog, who was right in front of them just not at optic-level.

"He's short," Ferak commented thoughtlessly. There was something amusing about bossy Alkali kowtowing to the diminutive sculptor.

"My charges are also complete idiots. Please excuse them, Master Slog," apologised Alkali.

"And the empty?" Slog questioned, his expression neutral.

"A gift, Master Slog" Alkali offered. "I am aware that you prefer combatants, but I was regrettably hurried."

Slog considered what she said and waved a hand vaguely. Although small, Slog had an impressive pair of wrist-blades that could easily account for most of the injuries to the sculptures, Ferak noted. Decided, Slog said, "Unfreeze him."

Alkali took the empty from Ferak and forced some chemicals down its fuel line. She then set the empty down in a clear spot and stepped away. Slog approached, watching it impassively. It sat up with a moan, obviously terrified, making Ferak's weapons systems itchy and eager. It bolted, and Slog moved more quickly than Ferak had expected, driving a wrist blade neatly though its lower torso. Slog pulled out the blade cleanly, and the empty slumped to the floor.

Looking at his newest piece, Slog mused, "An interesting effect, that. Now, emotion-weaver, wanted something of me, you must have."

"Master Slog, we are the refugees of Athanor," Alkali said by way of explanation, which explained nothing again, as far as Ferak could tell. She did that a lot, which hurt his head.

"The slag?" Darkwing blurted, perplexed.

"Athanor. Self-feeding furnace," Dreadwind explained gloomily.

"Oh, right," Darkwing agreed.

"Ach, can't I wax poetic without air-headed sky-jockeys messing me up?" Alkali moaned.

Ferak took offense. "Why I ought to-"

"Shut up? Again, please excuse their ignorance, Master Slog," Alkali pleaded.

"Just telling me of recent destruction, Scowl was." Slog's optic band narrowed. "That doomed any survivors were, also."

"Well, I'll be. Someone actually understands Alkali," Ferak sniped.

Ignoring Ferak, Alkali continued, "I figured as much when we all came down with a self-repair system disorder, but I kludged together a cure. The favour that I wish to ask, Master Slog, is that vouch to the army that that we are not dangerously infected and do not need to be exterminated."

"Do that, I can. Despite your company, I will. If in the future, a favour I should need of you..."

In an instant, Alkali agreed, "Of course, Master Slog."

Ferak was glad that Alkali was the one making that promise, not him.

* * *

"Your joints are a waste, your armour is going to take forever to beat back into shape, your self-repair system is trashed, and your other internals are a wreck," listed off the medic, a standard model Seeker. "No trace of any self-repair system disorders, though. You check out like the rest of them, which means that I can get down to the business of fixing you and shoving you back to active duty."

"Any clue where I'll be assigned?" Ferak asked, doing his best to relax on the repair plinth.

The Seeker-medic selected a few tools and replied, "Well, I hear Straxus is in need of more Seekers."

**The End**


End file.
